True Crime Campfire - For the Love of Money: The Crimes of Randy Roth Pt 1

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

The story of Bluebeard has a mostly happy ending, with the killer’s newest bride being rescued in the nick of time by her brothers. Good for her, less good for his previous wives, who she’d discovered hanging on hooks from the walls of a bloody closet. There are countless real-life stories of spouses being killed for money, with no muscular siblings breaking down the door with swords in hand. It’s much rarer for a killer to make victims of multiple spouses, but the central character in this week’s story had the spirit of Bluebeard in his heart, a man who would try to make a career from killing his wives for profit.Sources: Fatal Charm, Carlton SmithA Rose For Her Grave, Ann Rulehttps://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/shes-got-her-name-back-teenager-murdered-in-1977-finally-identified-with-new-dna-technique-and-genetic-genealogy/Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enTwitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

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I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. T'was Christmas in Dublin. And Puss was in boots where he found better than half-price fragrant star gifts. Including Yves-San-Laurang black opium odeparfum over-red 50-mill was 130 euro, now only 61 euro. Don't miss out. Shop in-store or online. Gift happily ever after. Boots.

Selected stores while stocks last offer ends 24th of December. The story of Bluebeard has a mostly happy ending with the killer's newest bride being rescued in the nick of time by her brothers. Good for her. Less good for his previous wives, who she'd discovered. hanging on hooks from the walls of a bloody closet. There are countless real-life stories of spouses being killed for money, with no muscular siblings breaking down the door with swords in hand. It's much rarer for a killer to make victims of multiple spouses, but the central character in this week's story had the spirit of Bluebeard in his heart,

a man who would try to make a career from killing his wives for profit. This is part one of For the Love of Money, The Crimes of Randy Roth. So, campers, we're starting this one at Beacon Rock, Washington, November 27, 1981. Beacon Rock looks out of place where it is, a jagged, 800-foot-tall spire of hard volcanic basalt, the remnant of an ancient eruption left standing while time smoothed the land all around it to soft green hills above the Columbia River. The rock is a forbidding place, or at least it was until 1915, when it was sold for a whole one dollar to a man named Henry J. Biddle, which is just about the

most 1915 name I can possibly imagine. Henry built a switchback trail with handrails up to the spectacular views at the summit, and after his death, his family gifted the rock to Washington as a state park. It's a nice half-hour hike to the top, if you're not scared. of heights, and it's been a popular spot for decades, although less so at the end of November, with a cold wind whipping up the Columbia Valley from the ocean. A little after 11 a.m., Stephen and Shelly Anderson, along with their dog and two friends, were halfway up the trail when a wild-eyed, crazed-looking man hurried down from the summit. The Anderson's dog, normally a calm and sweet-natured pup, immediately raised her hackles, growled, and tried to lunge for him. Always listen to the

animals. Always listen to the dogs. They know. My God, have you seen my wife? The man blurted out. I think she might have fallen from the rock. This was Randy Roth, and he told them his wife Janice had gone under one of the railings to take a picture and disappeared. Randy wanted the hikers to help him look for Janice from the trail, but he was really worked up and he made them nervous, especially Shelley Anderson. His eyes were crazy, she said later. He scared me. She didn't want to be anywhere near Randy Roth, and especially not on a narrow trail beside a steep fall. The hikers said they'd go back down to the parking lot at the base of the rock and call the authorities. Randy said, fine, and hurried back up the trail to try and find a way to get where he thought Janice must be.

Within minutes of the call from the parking lot, a deputy sheriff and two volunteer search and rescue medics were there. The medics hurried up the trail and met Randy halfway to the top. Just a few minutes earlier, he told the Andersons that Jan must. might have fallen from the rock. The medics got a more dramatic version. He'd watched as Jan slipped on some wet grass or pine needles and had seen her cartwheel off the rock. They sent him down to talk to the police and went up onto the spot where Randy said Jan had fallen from. As soon as they got there, they realized they needed a dedicated mountain rescue operation as the side of the rock was much too steep to climb down without the right gear. By the time rescue climber Bill Wiley arrived at the

Rock, Randy's crazed agitation had completely evaporated. He was just standing to one side of everything, perfectly calm, not asking any questions or showing any worry at all. Whenever anybody asked him what had happened, he always made a point to tell them that hiking up the rock had been Jan's idea. Randy took Bill to where he said Jan had fallen, a flat area with maybe 10 feet of grassy slope around it, and beyond that a sheer fall down the cliff face for about 300 feet. Bill sent someone to take Randy back down to the bottom of the rock and started setting up his gear, securing a rope to a tree. As he went out toward the edge, he didn't see any skid marks on the grass or any other sign that someone had fallen there. He repelled down as far as his rope would let him, about 160 feet, but could see no sign of Jan.

That was odd. According to Randy, she'd been wearing a pink ski jacket with white faux fur trim. She should easily stand out from the dull November cup. colors of the landscape. Bill was just about to unhook from his rope and climb down further when two army rescue helicopters arrived. Before long, he saw a rescuer, and then a body basket, being lowered down to a clump of trees about 150 feet to one side of Bill's location. They'd clearly found Janice Roth, and if she'd fallen from where Randy said she had, then she'd somehow descended at a 30-degree angle rather than straight down. When the sheriff, Ray blazed

told Randy his wife's dead body had been found, Randy walked away with his head in his hands. Blaisdale assumed he was crying, but couldn't actually see his face. Eventually, Randy recovered enough and came back over. He told the sheriff he'd seen lots of people die when he was in the military, but never a loved one. She didn't smoke, she didn't drink, and I loved her very much, Randy said, which Blaisdale thought was a pretty weird thing to say as far as epitaphs went. The rescuers had taken Jan's body to a nearby farm so she could be transferred to an ambulance, and as Blaisdale drove Randy over there, he said it again.

She didn't smoke, she didn't drink, and I loved her very much. Yeah, romantic. Yeah. At the farm, an EMT tried gently to persuade Randy to not look at Jan's body. The EMT said later, she had some gross injuries to the head and face, and there was a quite a bit of hemorrhage, i.e. a lot of blood. But Randy insisted, he didn't seem shaken up by the sight of Jan's injuries. She doesn't look so bad, he said. Her face doesn't seem as badly damaged as I expected. He calmly confirmed to Sheriff Blaisdale that the dead woman

was his wife. Blaisdale drove Randy back to Beacon Rock, and on the drive, Randy told him yet again that he'd seen plenty of people die in the military, but never a loved one. Then, For the third time, she didn't smoke, she didn't drink. That's why I married her. I loved her very much. You know, I think those were actually the lyrics on the first draft of nothing compares to you. Yeah, I would, you know, that's what every woman wants to hear. You don't smuck.

Dreamy. The ambulance took Jan's body to a funeral home in Camas, the nearest town of any size. Randy showed up right after and made it clear what he wanted. Jan's body was to be cremated as soon as possible. It was what she wanted, Randy said. They'd talked about exactly the situation and both agree they'd rather be cremated than buried. They'd also agreed that expensive funerals were wasteful. Jan wouldn't want any extravagance, so if the funeral home could get all this taken care of as cheaply as possible, that'd be great.

He paid $541 for his wife's cremings. to be done as soon as the police released the body. Conveniently, he had Jan's life insurance information in his wallet, so he could add all those details of the paperwork right there and then. Oh, that's handy. Super handy. We should probably point out that Janice Roth was 29 years old and Randy was 27. They'd known each other for less than a year and been married for eight months.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but do you think there's a lot of detailed conversations? going on about after-death care in that situation, they'd have to share a genuinely morbid interest in all things funerary. Either that or Randy Roth was just full of shit. Place your bets. Randy and Jan lived in Seattle, but they were visiting the southern part of the state to spend Thanksgiving with Randy's dad and stepmom. They each had a child from a previous marriage.

Randy had a four-year-old son, Greg, and Jan had a seven-year-old daughter, Jalina. who'd both stayed home with Randy's family while their mom and dad went hiking. Randy had a pathological aversion to emotional scenes. And he also liked painful pranks. He called home, but didn't tell anyone what happened. He just asked if the family wanted to come over to Kamas for some pizza. Oh, my God. Everyone was sitting down before they noticed Jan wasn't there,

but Randy just shrugged off their questions. His stepmom, Sandy, kept asking, come on, where's Jan? So Randy just casually pushed the cremation receipt from the funeral home across the table. Oh, my God. Sandy went white as she looked at it. Beside her, Randy's 13-year-old half-old half-sister Marcy took a look. What does this mean, she said? Who's Janis Miranda Roth? You know, Randy said. No, I don't know any Janice Roth, Marcy said. Because Randy and Jan had been together so briefly, Marcy barely knew her, and she'd only ever heard her called Jan, not Janice. Yes, you do, Randy said. Think about it. He calmly chomped on his pizza while Marcy figured out

the significance of the receipt. When she had, Marcy rushed to the bathroom, feeling nauseated. Jan's seven-year-old daughter, Jolina, followed her, chatty and cheerful as always. Marcy felt sick. She felt like it wasn't her place to tell Jolina anything. She was just, 13 years old herself. The little girl prattled happily on, oblivious to the fact that her mother was dead. That evening, when Jalina kept asking questions, Randy told her her mother had fallen and was in the hospital. He was so calm that Jelina didn't worry. She thought her mom would just be home the next day. Jan had been a lively, pretty young woman. She was also tiny, 98 pounds and just a hair over five feet tall. It didn't take long at all for a lot of people to start thinking how

easy it would be for a strong man like Randy to push her off of Beacon Rock. Just one solid shove would send her flying. The people who loved Jan wondered just who the hell this strange man she'd married really was. Randy Roth was born in 1954 in Bismarck, North Dakota, just three weeks after his parents had gotten married, and neither of his parents were particularly overjoyed about either the wedding or the birth of their first child. His dad, Gordon, was 18 years old, and his mom, Lisbeth, had just turned 16. Gordon thought his new wife had deliberately gotten pregnant to trap him into marriage. I think you might have had something to do with that, too, Gordy, but okay. Lisbeth, meanwhile, blamed Gordon for seducing her, with rather more

justification, seeing as she'd been only 15 at the time, so this sounds like a solid foundation for a marriage and a super-happy environment in which to raise a little boy, right? But both Gordon and Elizabeth came from religious families, and this was a time and a place where an unhappy marriage was something to be grimly endured rather than ended. Over the next decade and a half, they added three daughters and another son to their family, as Gordon became more and more bitter, and Elizabeth became ever more weirdly religious. In Bismarck, Gordon's uncle Elmer had given him work as a plumber, and when Elmer moved to Seattle at the end of the 50s for a new job with Boeing, Gordon, and his family followed.

As Seattle rapidly expanded, he worked on the sprawling new housing developments. Mostly steady work, but it didn't pay great. The Roths were always poor, and people who knew Randy in high school remembered him blaming himself for that poverty. In fact, blaming himself for everything wrong with his parents' dysfunctional relationship. If they hadn't had to get married because of him, none of this would be happening. Randy Roth was never a reflective person. He wouldn't have come up with this strain of guilt on his own. This came from his dad, who was constantly bitching about how Elizabeth getting pregnant and ruined his life. It's hard to get a clear picture of what Randy's childhood was like because the whole family are kind of horrible people who lie without having to think about it.

His younger brother Davy said their father was emotionally and physically abusive, beating the boys if they ever showed too much emotion, so they wouldn't grow up to be sissies. And I think there's probably some truth to that, given some of the particular ways that adult Randy was awful. But as we'll see a little later, Davy was every bit as much of a hot mess as his older brother, and you can't trust anything he says. So who the hell knows? But, I mean, I think it's likely. It sounds like it's likely. Gordon sounds like a piece of shit. In particular, Davy was a huge mama's boy.

And when Gordon finally filed for divorce in 1971, the kids were firmly split into two camps about where the blame lay. Davy and the girls were on Elizabeth's side and Randy was on his dad's. For most of his adult life, Randy would tell people that his mother, who, remember, was 16 years old when he was born, was either dead or an elderly nursing home patient being treated for dementia. I guess that's one way to avoid the awkwardness of introducing your girlfriend to your mom. Even people who liked her thought Elizabeth was an odd duck. By the time of her divorce, she always had perfectly, put together hair, held in place by so much hairspray you could have turned her sideways and used her as a battering ram. She was deeply religious, always going to tent revivals, always quoting the Bible,

restricting what the kids could watch on TV. I'm guessing the Roth kids never got to see much bewitched or I dream of Jeannie. You know, because of all the Satanism. But on the other hand, she liked to wear tight dresses to show off her figure and dated tough of biker gang type dudes. She wore a ton of makeup with each eye buried in a dark pit of eye shadow. And we mentioned this because adult Randy would have real persnickety rules for the women he was involved with and a big one was you cannot wear much makeup.

You don't always have to dig real deep to uncover, you know, the psychological roots of behavior. Definitely not. After the divorce, Gordon basically wanted to ditch his family and get out of there. He didn't take much more than his car and bike, leaving Elizabeth in the house, along with the responsibility and expense of raising five children, to which he contributed a couple hundred bucks every month in child support, so things were tight. In addition to going to school, 16-year-old Randy had to get jobs at gas stations and grocery stores. He was also the only remaining member of the family who could drive and was always having to take his mom and siblings wherever they needed to go. his mom was constantly guilt-tripping him.

Randy, God wants you to take care of your mother. You can understand why he felt resentment, but why was it all directed at his mom and not the dad who'd abandoned him? Right, yeah. Tale as old as time, right? By high school, Randy was a short, good-looking kid who worked out. He was also what people in the early 70s were still calling a juvenile delinquent, although I'm what a lot of people actually called him was that asshole Roth kid. He smashed mailboxes. He stole cars. He shoplifted. He liked the kind of pranks where someone got

hurt. He also had skin as thin as tissue paper. The normal teasing and insults of school life would send him into a simmering rage that would only calm down once he got his revenge. He was incapable of laughing at himself. He stalked through the corridors of Meadowvale High School in a leather jacket and a scowl, making nobody's day any better. He was unpredictably violent. And the kind of adolescent bully that'll be familiar if you've ever gone to a certain kind of high school or just read some classic Stephen King novels. Despite being an asshole, good-looking and moody is usually a combination that attracts

plenty of ladies. And that was true for Randy. Girls would see him by himself, looking all serious, staring off into the distance, as though gripped by deep and mysterious thoughts. In fact, Randy had terrible eyesight, but was too vain to wear his glasses. When he stared off into the distance, he was probably just trying to figure out which distant blob was which. Oh, Lord, all my terrible exes just flashed before my eyes. I was a classic victim of that, like, I can fix him thing back when I was young and dumb.

Give me a leather jacket, some long, dark hair, and a biological inability to smile. then young Whitney had to ring out her underpants. God. Bluel, you all listen, if I can reach just one young girl here, this whole podcast from the first episode ever will have been worth it. The troubled brooding types are not it, okay? You think you're getting Twilight era Robert Pattinson

when what you're actually getting is an overgrown manchild who thinks laundry is beneath him. For the love of God, shut it down. Save yourselves. It's too late for me, okay? I've already been traumatized by several of these dudes. But you're young. Save yourselves. Yeah, cruel to everyone but you isn't a green flag.

It's only a matter of time before they stop getting what they want from you and their cruelty will turn on you. His first serious girlfriend was Belinda Howard, who later told the following story to a detective. Randy loved cars, loved working on them, and most of all loved driving them like an absolute maniac through the suburbs and country roads. Belinda had just gotten her first car, which was a piece of crap like most first cars. Randy was speeding it through the suburbs, with Belinda sitting in front between Randy and one of his buddies. When Randy made a right turn sharp enough that the car went up on two wheels, the back door swung open. Belinda climbed into the back to shut it, but Randy made another sharp right, and Belinda just flew right out through the open door. She bounced and scraped across the asphalt and wound up against the curb on the other side of the street.

Randy slammed on the brakes, but it was his buddy who hurried back first and asked if Belinda was okay if she'd broken anything. She had cuts and scrapes that were bleeding and she was crying, and that was when Randy showed up. He wasn't concerned at all. In fact, he was furious. He grabbed her by the arm and hissed at her, don't you cry, don't you dare cry. If you make any noise, I'll hit you. He was deadly serious. He didn't care if she was hurt at all, just didn't want to be confronted by any kind of big emotional scene. Not surprisingly, things with Belinda petered out soon after that, and the next girlfriend was a petite blonde called Terry McGuire.

The petite part was important. Randy wasn't a tall guy, but liked to tower over his girlfriends as much as possible. Terry was always patient and considerate with Randy, even when he screwed around behind her back with Belinda and another girlfriend, Jan Johnson. She'd fallen into the classic bad boy trap, just like I did, back in the time. day. Save yourselves. I'm begging you. Randy was different people with different girls. Belinda got the moody rebel. Terry got the misunderstood sad sack. She, lucky girl, was always getting an earful from Randy about how worthless he was and how much his life sucked. And I'm sure those feelings

came from somewhere real, but throughout his life, Randy Roth would only ever really have two life skills. Fixing cars and manipulating women, and he was already good at both. Terry was a care bear, and Randy's sad clown act kept her on the hook. Like many an insecure dweeb before and after him, Randy tried to live his young life as macho as possible. He lied about being a Kung Fu master and always carried a long knife. Yeah, Kung Fu is the like CIA of martial arts. Like a sheet a cam, remember, for a few episodes ago. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a deep true crime can't fire lower pole. Yeah. If you're new to our podcast. If you got that, you're a real one. Okay. He got into fights, especially if another dude so much has dared to look at Terry. For most of his high school years, there was a lot of real world violence going on over in Vietnam, but Randy was indifferent to that, up until his senior year in 1973.

Almost the entirety of Randy's adult persona would revolve around being a Marine during the Vietnam War, so we should get the timeline clear from the start. On March 29th, the last U.S. combat troops withdrew from Vietnam. Five days later, Randy signed up for the Marines. Okay, he would never set foot in Vietnam or be within a thousand miles of combat. Randy's reasons for joining the military were neither unusual nor. unreasonable. He wanted to get away from his shitty home life and he wanted to get some job training he could use to find employment afterwards. I don't think this is still the case, but at the time,

you could sign up for just two years of active service, which is what Randy did. But it turned out that the Marines didn't offer much worthwhile job training to two-year recruits or show them much in the way of respect. Randy said his recruiter had lied to him, but I don't think Randy ever once accepted responsibility for a mistake in his whole life. Everything. was always somebody else's fault, so he probably just didn't pay attention. Anyway, there were a few months before Randy had to report

for basic training down in San Diego, which was long enough for a little more drama. It was Christmas in Dublin, and Puss was in boots where he found better than half price on electrical beauty. Including number seven silver cordless mirror with 69 euro 99, now only 25 euro 99. Don't miss out. Shop in store or online. Gift happily ever after. Boots. Subject to availability selected stores offer in 6th of January 2026.

Just a few weeks before Randy left town, Terry told him she was pregnant. The idea of being a father terrified Randy. He told Terry he knew he'd be a terrible dad, which, spoiler, he was. He also saw a reflection of his own father, and there were clear similarities. They were both completely indifferent to birth control, and inexplicably, their girlfriends got pregnant. How'd that happen? God. And it's, you know, it's just like Eli Stutzman, who is like, I don't use condoms.

I ain't fucking a no sock. And then he gets STDs and HIV. Like my, my, my dude. Yeah. Wrap it up, you freaking doofus. God, Randy. Gordon Roth had thoroughly drilled into Randy that his arrival into the world had ruined Gordon's life. And now Randy thought he was looking down the barrel of the same fate.

He pressured Terry and. to having an abortion, but they didn't have the money for it. So like any of us would do, Randy decided to rob a gas station. Specifically, he decided to rob a gas station where he used to work and where the kid behind the counter, Jesse Akers, was a former high school classmate. Oh, terrific. Way to go, man. Good choice. Yeah. Randy had on a ski mask, but Jesse recognized him right away. When Randy started waving his big knife around, Jesse initially thought it was a joke. He'd been about to say, hey, Randy, when he realized this was deadly serious and that Randy might not react well to finding out his cover was blown.

Wow. Randy had always kind of scared him. Randy tied Jesse up and stashed him in the back room and stole $240 in some eight-track tapes. When the police showed up, Jesse told them the robber's identity, but by the time the cops actually got around to investigating, Randy was already down in San Diego with the Marines. turning over a gas station wasn't worth chasing someone down to another state. They'd just wait for Randy to come home. He's cops, man. I know.

This poor kid's been tied up in a closet. Like, eh, we'll just, man. Yeah, thanks, guys. Yeah, no, we're going to let him go get a gun and some training. Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine. Randy hated military life immediately. No one cared that he was a high school tough guy. No one was scared of him.

No one showed him any respect. His thin-skinned little psyche couldn't handle being yelled at and told what to do, which obviously is like the whole point of basic training. He was miserable, and his only escape was in his endless letters to Terry McGuire. These changed tones between sappy declarations of love and first draft Chuck Nora scripts. In the love letters, Randy was far more expressive than he ever wasn't. in person, which I think was partly because he was lonely and partly because he was terrified she'd find someone better without him around to scare the other guys away.

He told her about big plans for the two of them when he came home for Christmas and even said he was thinking about buying a ring. He also promised to kick the asses of anyone who tried to move in on Terry. And if she didn't do whatever Randy wanted, he promised to turn you over my knee and give you a spanking, which for some couples might be a good time. But that is not the way Randy meant it. He wanted obedience. Then after all this big talk, when Randy came home on Christmas leave, he pretty much

ghosted Terry. He spent all his time either working on cars with his buddies or screwing around with Jan Johnson. But as soon as he was back in San Diego, the letter started again, with Randy saying he chickened out of asking to marry him because he didn't think he was worthy of her, blah, blah, blah. That's always BS. I'm sorry, I've experienced this as well. if they tell you you're too good for me they are lying shut it down yeah yeah yeah that's just not into you i'm sorry but that's it no yeah or if they say they're not ready for a relationship but they still

want all the relationship stuff they don't want to be with you and and this is true regardless of gender by the way that one like that's BS like i'm not ready for a relationship is BS I don't care who's well and getting but but if you could not be ready for a relationship but then getting all the benefits of a relationship that's the red flag is like right yeah I don't want to put a label on it but I want to sleep with you and I want to hang out with you and I want you to do all these partner things this is what I mean like if you've been seeing this person and then you try to take it to the next level and they say I'm just not ready for anything yeah yeah and I can guarantee you that when you cut things off with them they will be in a relationship with somebody

else within they're suddenly be ready yeah yeah so and it's like here's the thing is they're just not that into you is not an insult to you. They're just not right for you. It's fine. Anyway, back, back off the tangent. After basic, the Marines assigned Randy to Camp Pendleton, also in San Diego, and dealt another blow to his macho man image. They decided his best role in the Corps was to be a clerk and sent him to learn how to type. And we say this a lot with these military fanaticist types, it's fine if your military career doesn't involve you parachuting into jungles with knives between your teeth and a machine gun under each arm. You still served. You go where you're told and you do what you're told. That's kind of the

whole point. It's only the insecurities of losers like Randy that make it a big deal. So Randy was still miserable and now he was bored too. Ooh, that's a deadly combo for somebody like him. He didn't make one friend in the Marines. Wonder why. His letters to Terry got more and more fantastical. He got in trouble because he got in a fight with other Marines and hurt them too bad. He spent his off hours in a dojo in Oceanside where he studied under Bruce Lee. One time, a fight broke out at the dojo and he had to beat up five big hippies all by himself, sending three of them to the hospital.

After a few months at Pendleton, Randy was shipped overseas to the big American base on Okinawa, Japan. It was an easy, peaceful posting, not that you'd know it from Randy's letters. He and two other Marines had been jumped by eight Japanese gangsters, he told Terry. Randy got hit in the face with a pipe that fractured his cheekbone, but fought bravely on, knocking out four of the attackers himself, leaving one of them with a broken neck. Minor spoiler, but about 20 years later, some unlucky detectives would have to chase down all these stories about Randy's violent life in the core to see if there was any truth to them. And I know it's going to shock you, but there was not.

And we want to share one fantasy letter Randy sent Terry, both because it shows how Randy thought about himself and about women and because it's funny. And Randy Roth deserves to be laughed at. So this excerpt is from Carlton Smith's book Fatal Charm, which was one of our main sources for this case. He only includes snippets of the actual text, but summarizes the rest. And just a warning here, this might make you cringe so hard you hurt yourself a little bit.

So brace yourself. Terry is at her job behind the snack bar at the Linwood roller skating rink when Randy, or rather Sir Randolph, crashed through the door on his mighty blue chopper, wheelies across the rink and skids to a standstill by the snack bar. You can see the fear in the eyes of all the boys at the counter as he dismounts his bike, Randy wrote. Sir Randolph took off his helmet and let his long, dark hair fall to his shoulders. The death-defying look on his face causes them all to scatter as he walks forward toward the beautiful woman at the snack bar.

Oh, my God. He lifts Terry on to the chopper, quote, and gives a cold, defiant look to the people around them. before racing back out of the doors, having rescued his maiden from servitude. And then everybody clapped, right? Now, a couple things here. One, Terry is just a prop. The story is all about Sir Randolph impressing the boys at the counter back in Linwood, where Randy was, at least in his own mind, kind of a big deal.

Variations on this would be a constant in Randy's relationships. Women weren't really people to him, just prizes to be won, and eventually investments to be cashed in. And two, Randy's beautiful long hair. He did, in fact, have a fine head of glossy black hair, and obviously the Marines clipped it down to stubble as soon as he enlisted. Randy hated that. Whenever he came home on leave, he wore a wig.

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I miss my beautiful hair. Randy was still miserable in Okinawa, so he did what any rough and tough Marine would do when backed into a corner. He asked brother for help. Elizabeth, with Terry's help, wrote letters requesting a hardship discharge for Randy because his family was struggling without him. That part was certainly true.

His younger sister Darlene was pregnant, and younger brother Davy, at 17 years old, was already too much of a drunken fuck-up to be much help. And if that line woke some little glimmer of sympathy for Davy, trust us, put those feelings on hold a little bit till we get to the end of the episode, okay? yes. Don't waste it. The Roth family anyway was struggling. Not that Randy had any intention of moving back in with them and helping out, but he kept quiet about that part, and by August of 1974, his discharge had been approved, and he was back in Linwood. If he'd been more valuable, the Marines might have tried harder to keep hold of him, but Randy had impressed exactly no one in the Corps. So that was Randy Roth's military career. Less than a year long, half of it spent in basic training, and tight- school, the other half is a clerk. Back home, he and Terry got engaged and Randy got another gas station job. Terry's mom had just remarried and moved in with her new husband, and she agreed to let Randy stay in her old house until it was sold. Every evening, Terry came over to hang out and make dinner for him.

But just like before, Randy in person was a lot less interested in Terry than Randy the lonely letter writer had been. Where's Sir Randolph? I thought we were getting Sir Randolph. Where's he? Sometimes Terry waited hours for Randy to come home from the gas station, and sometimes he just never came home at all. Just a month and a half after Randy had come home from the Marines, Terry went to the gas station and saw Randy leaning into a car window and talking to the woman inside.

People are generally pretty good at reading body language. Right away, Terry thought, he's cheating on me with that woman. She drove off as Terry approached, and when Terry confronted Randy, he denied everything. He swore up and down that the woman was just a customer whose car he'd fixed. But Terry knew Randy very well, and knew he had a couple of tells when he was lying. He'd giggle softly when he spoke, or he'd make a lame joke. He did both now.

One evening, a few days later, Terry went over to the house when Randy was apparently out with buddies. The door was chained from the inside, but she used a paperclip to lift the chain clear and went in. In Randy's bedroom, she found a woman's purse and looked. looked through it to find a driver's license. The photo showed the woman she'd seen at the gas station, whose name was Donna Sanchez. Terry burst into tears and called her mom to come pick her up. When her mom June showed up, Terry told her what she'd found.

June gave Terry the keys to her car and told her to drive home. She was going to sit and wait for Randy. June had never liked Randy. She'd told Terry he had Charlie Mansonize. Yeah. A little while later, A motorcycle pulled into the garage, and June could hear a man and woman laughing out there. When the door to the garage open, Randy was standing there with his arm around Donna Sanchez.

Randy went pale as a sheet as soon as he saw June. You have one hour to get your things together and get out of this house, June said. Randy didn't take that long. Oh, yes, June. And I love that he was petrified of her, too. That's so good. He wasn't quite done with Terry's family. though. He soon lost his job at the gas station and went back to petty theft. Among other homes, he burgled the Macwires. Terry immediately knew it was Randy because none of her things were taken,

only stuff belonging to her mom and stepdad, who Randy blamed for their breakup. In Randy's mind, nothing was ever his fault. Ten days after the robbery, Linwood Police arrested Randy and Donna for the burglary, although Donna was soon released. The cops immediately connected Randy with the gas station robbery before he joined the Marines and was soon ordered to stand trial on both charges. He got off easy. He pled guilty, and although the charges carried a potential sentence of 15 years in state prison, the prosecution recommended probation with no time served. A probation officer performed a pre-sentence evaluation on Randy and described him as irresponsible, rebellious, obnoxious, and immature. He caught Randy in multiple lies and

recommended a short 60-day prison sentence, which he described as being potentially therapeutic for Randy. Possibly not as therapeutic as an ass whoopin. Surely not. But the judge went with the prosecutor's recommendation for no jail time, and Randy walked free. He faced next to no consequences for his actions, something that is really not good for anyone developing psychopathic trades. In July 1975, just about eight months after they'd met, Randy,

and Donna Sanchez got married, and soon after moved down to Portland where Randy got a factory job. We don't really have as clear a picture of Donna as we do for the other women in Randy's life, mainly because she left it almost as quickly and easily as she came into it. A detective who interviewed her years later described her as very pleasant, but whatever other qualities she had, the main thing that appealed to Randy was her goalability. Donna swallowed his bullshit stories, hook, line, and sinker. By now, those stories had expanded to include combat missions in Vietnam.

A calendar and just a little curiosity would have revealed this as nonsense, but Donna never questioned Randy. Randy often awoke from terrible nightmares about the horrors he'd seen in the Marines. He'd been a clerk, remember, so presumably he woke up screaming stuff like, the W-2s! So many W-2s!

But, no, what troubled Randy was the terrible things he'd been made to do in Vietnam. There was a lot of killing, he told Donna. His platoon had to wipe out entire villages. He told her he strangled a baby with piano wire, which is such a weird one. First, because why would you need piano wire for that? And more importantly, why wasn't Donna completely repulsed by the story? But to her, it was just part of her new husband, the damaged hero. Why would you get, what the, it's, uh. Yeah, like, were there a lot of baby combatants in Vietnam. Like, lady, your husband is a war criminal.

I know. And you really got to think, like, what kind of woman would not walk out the door right there? Yeah. So it really says something interesting to me about Donna. Like, because I feel like if a guy told me he'd murdered a baby, I, that's a deal breaker for me, just saying. I hope so.

That's on the list of deal breakers. Yeah, it's like between. leaves the toilet seat up and... Yeah, won't pick up the socks. Yeah, exactly. War crimes, you know. But Donna's faith in him was unshakable. When a detective told her there was no record of Randy ever seeing combat,

Donna insisted that was because his missions were so secret and covert that no records of them were ever made. Donna, bless your heart, honey. Randy had started what would be a long hobby of collecting military emblems and patches from pawn shops so he could pass them off as his own. He already had a purple heart. He'd stolen the one Terry's stepdad had won. And we know he didn't actually have any combat trauma,

so I'm curious if he actually suffered from night terrors at all. I think he just stayed awake till he was sure Donna was asleep and then faked it. Just to add barisimilitude to his stories. Randy was utterly incapable of maintaining a long-term relationship. Within 18 months of his marriage to Donna, Randy was back in Washington sniffing around Terry McGuire at the roller rink. He told her he and Donna were separated and Pickens must have been slim for women in Linwood in the 70s because soon he and Terry were dating again.

That's no shade on Terry. It's just like, really, you just always go back to the same girl. Yeah, yep. It's unclear whether Randy and Donna had actually separated. He told Terry that she'd gone to stay with her sister in eastern Washington, but neglected to mention that Donna had been pregnant when she left. Later, Terry would think Donna had left town to get away from Randy pressuring her to terminate the pregnancy, just like he'd done with Terry a few years before.

Randy and Donna's son, Greg, was born in August, 1977. Randy spent that night with Terry, almost frantic, terrified by the thought of being a father, furious that Donna had handcuffed him into the relationship by getting pregnant, oblivious to his own part in the whole process. He told Terry he'd gotten a vasectomy to make sure he knew. never had any more children. Now, I have no idea if that's true, but I suspect he was lying and just wanted an excuse to get out of wearing a condom. After Greg's birth, Randy and Donna briefly reconciled, but before the kid was two years old, Randy filed for divorce. There was a brief

custody battle. Randy, who had never wanted to be a dad, dug in his heels, apparently just purely out of spite. No one's going to take my boy away from me, told Donna. I don't think she's ever said this, but I suspect she was scared about what lengths Randy might go to to get what he wanted. She already believed he'd killed dozens of people in the war. Remember, including a baby, for God's sake, so who knows what he'd be capable of, right? Donna had a young daughter from a previous relationship, and she took her and went east of her sister, granting custody of Greg to Randy. Just everybody just, oh, take a minute, that poor baby.

1997, when Greg was born, was a significant year for the rest of the Roth family, too. Okay, so it's time to talk about Davy. You wouldn't think Davy and Randy were brothers. Randy was short, good-looking, and intense. Davy was six-foot-five and thin, rough-looking with maybe two teeth left in his mouth, and this was a young guy. He was 20 years old, but his hair was already receding, and a scruffy beard covered the lower half of his face. He looked like he'd just stepped out of a John Steinbeck novel.

He was three years younger than Randy, but looked 15 years older. which was handy for one part of his favorite pastimes, which were drinking beer and getting high. He'd always been a weird, lonely kid, usually shy but prone to wild rages when he drank. His only friend in the world was his mom, Elizabeth. He adored Randy, but Randy didn't give a shit about him. Davy had two prize possessions.

One was a beat-up 1963 Chevy Nova his mom had given him, which he clumsily spray-painted different colors all over. He put a sign on the dashboard that read, ass, gas, or grass. Which I'm an old, so I know this, but you might not if you're younger. That was a common thing back in the day for hitchhikers. Like you put that, you know, sign up, ass, gas, or grass, meaning you can give me any of these three and I'll drive you somewhere. Yeah, it's funny.

It would be funny if he didn't mean it. That's the thing. It's funny. It's funny if he didn't seriously believe in that. He kept his other prize possession in the trunk, a 22-caliber Marlin rifle, along with a jar of shells given to him by Bob Hendershot. Bob had previously dated Davy's older sister Darlene and was more a friend of the family than a friend of Davies, but he was still the person outside the family that Davy was closest to. On August 11, 1977, Davy headed out to the Silver Lake County Park to go swimming.

On the way, he saw a tall, dark-haired young woman hitchhiking. She was not a bad-looking girl, he said later, and he picked her up. She said she was headed to a trailer park south of the lake. Davy asked if she wanted to have some beer, and she said yes, so he went and bought a case and drove to a wooded area behind his old high school. They drank a few beers, and then Davy, who had never any kind of romantic or physical relationship in his life, tried to pressure her into having sex. She refused and pushed him back.

Davy remembered that he had some peacock feathers in his trunk and asked the woman if she wanted one. She said, all right, and he went out to get one. Davy opened the trunk, and beside the peacock feathers, he saw a few lengths of rubber cord he kept back there. And right then and there, he decided he was going to kill the woman who had rejected him. He held the peacock feathers in one hand and hit a rubber cord in the other and walked to the passenger side window. He handed the feathers in, and while the hitchhiker was looking at them, them, he reached in and wrapped the rubber cord tied around her neck, then pulled as

hard as he could. She struggled helplessly, her face turning blue, then purple. The cord snapped, but it seemed like the woman was already dead. Davy decided not to take any chances and went back to get another rubber cord and strangled her some more.

He dragged the body into some bushes, but as he was about to leave, he thought he saw her twitch. So he got his 22 rifle out of the trunk and shot her seven times in the back of the head. Wow. Davy's mental state was never what you'd call focused, and he was especially strange right now. He reloaded the rifle and shot round after round into the car his mom had given him, blowing out the rear window. Then he got a can of spray paint and wrote on the roof of the car,

death to the one who enter. Wow. After that, he drove away to get more beer, drink it all, and took all the drugs he had in the car. He'd fallen out of a tree a few months before and had been prescribed pain medication for a hurt shoulder, and he'd also helped himself to as much of his mom's valium as he wanted. He took it all, trying to kill himself. But I guess he'd built up enough tolerance to live through the overdose. Hours later, he drove home, went to his bedroom,

and passed out for two days. Five days after her death, a husband and wife out berry-picking found the body of Davy's victim, already decomposing in the summer heat. Her face badly misshapen from the gunshot injuries to her head. If you've ever looked into the psychology of serial killers, this is all pretty scary. This scenario, an ineffectual loser experiencing sudden excitement from an aberrant act, is a much more common starting point than any kind of grandiose Hannibal Lectarian stuff.

Absolutely. Fortunately, Davy Roth was an idiot. A day after the body had been discovered, although Davy didn't know about that at the time, He and Bob Hendersonhot were driving around drinking Thunderbird wine, like you do. When they stopped to get some more wine, Davy asked Bob, What would you do if I told you I killed someone? Before long, he was spilling the whole story, and by the end he evidently realized he probably shouldn't have

because he made sure to tell Bob that he'd kill again if he thought it was necessary. It took a little while, because he was scared of Davy, but three days later, Bob went to this Nohomish County Sheriff's Department and told them what he knew. Davy briefly went on the lamb, with some help from Mama Elizabeth's current biker gang boyfriend. I guess that's what she thought Jesus would do. But before long, he was arrested. On the drive back to Snohomish County, he confessed to the murder,

although he'd later claim he'd only done so because the cops had threatened to arrest his mom. There wasn't much doubt about how Davy's trial would turn out, although it was kind of a circus anyway. Every so often, Elizabeth and one of her daughters would drop to their knees and start loudly praying. At least people assumed they were praying. Nothing but unintelligible gibberish came out of their mouths. I guess they were speaking in tongues or whatever they call it. The judge would order them back into their seats, but a few minutes later, there they'd be, back on their knees and doing it again. Meanwhile, Elizabeth's boyfriend sat in his leather jacket, absolutely still

glaring at the judge through his sunglasses, which had to be unsettling. The pleas for divine intervention or whatever it was didn't help. Davy Roth was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 25 years. Elizabeth told anyone who'd listen that the FBI had framed him with phony ballistics evidence. Yeah, because the feds have nothing better to do than frame your loser in cell son. And the mess with Davy. Davy Roth, he's our top priority. Jesus. Most sources on this case have Davy's victim as an anonymous Jane Doe, and that's because it wasn't until 2020 that familial DNA tests identified her. She was Elizabeth Ann Roberts, a 17-year-old girl who'd run away from home

just a couple months earlier. She'd had a big fight with her parents after they found a bag of weed in her room, and she'd been staying with some people in a trailer park. Not long before her encounter with Davy Roth, she'd called home, and her parents begged her to come back. Elizabeth said she'd think about it, but she never got the chance. As far as we know, Randy never showed up in court during his brother's trial. He was disgusted by Davy, not for his crime, but for his stupidity. You don't get caught, he told a friend. Randy was a lot smarter than his kid brother, and he put his money where his mouth was. He didn't get caught. At least, not for his first murder. But to hear about that, you're going to have to wait for next week, because the story of Randy Roth is

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